Sunday, April 18, 2010

USA - FCC to collect data US broadband performance data

[afterdawn] The FCC will, for the first time ever, be collecting data about the performance of consumer broadband internet connections across the US.

In the past data has been provided by ISPs, and FCC officials have admitted it was worthless while still releasing reports based on it.

In order to get some real world data the FCC has contracted with SamKnows, a company who has worked with UK telecom regulators at Ofcom for similar purposes. Their most recent work showed that users of the most popular UK broadband services were only getting about half the speed advertised.

After soliciting volunteers who have broadband internet service from across the US, SamKnows will be providing specially modified routers which will analyze various aspects of each user's connection. In addition to providing the data and analysis to the FCC, SamKnows will allow participants to view data about their individual connections.

Details on the methodology to be used for the study will be released by the FCC within the next few days.